"Simple Naval rules" Topic

Hello,

I was wondering if there are any sort of naval rules out there that are simpler than say victory at sea. The rules don't have to be a kindergarden level, Im just looking for a set of rules that flows quickly without much bookkeeping.

Thanks in Advance

Wow, simpler than Victory at Sea? The only thing that comes to mind is "Battleship"
Seriously, VaS is already such a simple ruleset, why do you want one that is easier?

Matt

I can't think of anything published that comes to mind.

Mark

Whoa! Yeah. . . not too many requests for something simpler than VaS.

I guess you could play the A&A War at Sea rules from Wizards. . . those are simpler, but a lot less fun than VaS because of it!

Does have the advantage of coming with miniatures.

Or. . . you could always push your model ships around on the table and say "pow! pow!" LOL!!

Ummm…yeah. VaS is about as easy peasy as it gets. Every naval game I know of involves some form of bookkeeping to track damage on ships.

Beat to Quarters for hexed gaming:
PDF link

Letters of Marque
link

Or Wooden Ships and Iron Men Lite
link

Tim Gow wrote a set of rules called Iron Ships and Wooden Heads (inter-war but could be adapted). It was published in an old MW or WI issue. It is fairly simple and requires little book keeping--a couple of chits on the table to track damage. You can use it to play fleet on fleet actions without too much difficulty--same level of abstraction as DBA is for land combat.

Im not sure where you want to go with this. The A&A War at sea rules from Wizards are available as a free PDF on their website. Rules which are even simpler can be found in a number of board wargames. Avalon Hills Victory at Sea and War in the Pacific while out of print are relatively easy to find on eBay. Avalanch Press also has a series of naval games with mechanics for resolving naval battles. Both these series of games are primarily campaign games with a quasi-tactical sub section for resolving battles. The A&A rules are somewhat along these lines also. Another interesting set of free rules are Firepower:Big guns and Cordite available at this link:

link

Naval gamers tend to love bookkeeping and complexity so you will have trouble finding anything much simpler than VAS or the A&A rules. The Firepower rules are a bit more complex than these but do not attempt to show the differences between ships of the same type so all BBs are just BBs, Cruisers are Cruisers, etc. Rather strange but they seem to work. Good luck.

The summer I played a couple of games of A&A adapted by my naval friends. I really enjoyed them – they were very simple, of course, but the data on the ship cards meant there was a fair bit of variety.

that was a typo…
I meant to say as simple as VAS

Hmmm … about the only thing that comes to mind (for miniatures) is the A&A War at Sea game.

Rules are available online so you can check them out. Ships only have a few stats, so not too complicated, but as was mentioned above, it helps to give the individual ships some character. Record keeping is minimal (tracking hits mostly, and then mostly on larger vessels, as smaller ones tend to sink with one solid hit). And it plays on a supplied square grid map (ships move one or two squares in a turn) and facing is not important. So no ship turning arcs or rulers to deal with.

"Battlestations, Battlestations!" from Decision Games will do the trick for you.

Battleship?

"Battlestations, Battlestations!" I second that almost NO record keeping, great for large ship actions.

……………….Doug

Battle Stations, Battle Stations is quite simple with virtually no record keeping and has the virtue of being, in my opinion, a bit more accurate. That said, if the Axis and Allies rules were any simpler, they'd be written in crayon and VAS, while glitchier as far as feeling accurate or historic goes, probably has more intuitive mechanics for new, non-naval gamers.

You could try Easy Ship found on the Freewargamesrules.co.uk page. About as simple as they come and its free. Ship stats for WW1 and 2.
The direct link is:
cke1st.com/m_games1.htm

This mioght be a good time to request a comparison between Victory at Sea and Battle Stations Battle Stations.

Are there any reviews on-line wihc compare the two in an unbiased manner?
Ie not emanating from an author's gaming club etc..

Thanks